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Exploding the myth of cure-all female corporate boardsWednesday September 5th, 2018
The Liberals are looking at an amendment to diversity-themed Bill C-25 that would force businesses to open their diversity policies to shareholders or explain why they don’t (“comply or explain”). At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, “Companies should have a formal policy on gender diversity and make the recruitment of women candidate...

Trump, Trudeau and the front lines of the fight against bullWednesday September 5th, 2018
American commentator Joseph Epstein once described himself, vocationally speaking, as “standing off on the sidelines, viewing the various public escapades — political, cultural, social — and calling out with some regularity, “Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit!” Epstein had his work cut out for him in 2017. Didn’t all opinion journalists?
Donald Trump alone provid...

WLU’s contemptible conduct proof of intellectual assault underway on campusesWednesday September 5th, 2018
The story of Wilfrid Laurier University grad student and teaching assistant Lindsay Shepherd — who was recently subjected to a creepy, but instructive, grilling by campus superiors over material she’d used for her entry-level Communication tutorials — went viral on social media last week.
A somewhat naive lament was posted by the host of TVO’s The Agenda, Steve Pai...

If writing off 2019 gets us a real conservative party, so be itTuesday August 28th, 2018
Rub a dub dub, three men in a tub: Trudeau and Scheer fight for the oars, while a smiling Bernier rocks the boat.Did Bernier walk away from the CPC or was he pushed? Whatever, a poll immediately following Maxime Bernier’s exit showed striking positive reaction to his declaration of a projected new party, with 13 per cent support nation-wide (15 per cent in Quebec, second to Libs).Seeing...

A new report sounds the alarm on Rapid Onset Gender DysphoriaWednesday August 22nd, 2018
Imagine yourself the parent of an adolescent boy or (more likely) girl without a single previous sign of body dysphoria, who “out of the blue” decides she is transgender. She demands a name change, breast binders and cross-sex hormones.You’re shocked and skeptical, as your child has struggled with one or more problems — autism, depression, social isolation or unproces...

It’s time to bring some order, and safety, back to our classroomsTuesday July 24th, 2018
The term “tough love” was not yet in usage when I was in high school, but it was the prevailing attitude in terms of discipline. Chronic disruptors were expelled. Teachers had real authority — and admittedly at times too much. “Getting the strap” is long gone in Ontario schools, as it should be. But so, for students it would have constrained in my day, is fear o...

For the first time, Israel is the world’s most Jewish country — this is a game-changerTuesday July 17th, 2018
The announcement was not unexpected. On the contrary, for those who follow the subject, it was long anticipated. But the words themselves, spoken by Israel’s Immigration Minister, Sofa Landver, still carried emotional force: “Israeli Jews now constitute the largest Jewish community in the world.”Until now, the U.S., with its many millions of Jews, has been the most Jewish c...

One woman’s journey from social-justice warrior to free-speech championTuesday July 10th, 2018
When my son’s family took up residency in Toronto’s Riverdale neighbourhood, previously unknown to me, I discovered a continually gentrifying urban paradise, rich in cultural diversity. In particular, families with homes bordering beautiful Withrow Park seemed to me to have hit the real estate jackpot.But in 1972, when my new friend Sarina Singh’s father bought a house on W...

Suggestions for the new Ontario sex-ed curriculumTuesday July 3rd, 2018
Doug Ford’s victory was in some measure due to his promise — I believe a heartfelt one — to repeal the sex ed curriculum in Ontario schools. I assume there’s a replacement program in the works. A sex-ed vacuum is not politically tenable, or even what most conservative parents want.
What principles will undergird a Doug Ford inspired curriculum? I’d suggest four gu...

UBC had a #MeToo bloodletting. It was a disaster for everyoneTuesday June 26th, 2018
The Lottery, Shirley Jackson’s macabre 1948 tale illuminating the human tendency to conform with evil, ranks high amongst American short stories. The ending is unforgettably shocking: as the ritual climax to a harvest festival, a lottery “winner” is stoned to death by the victim’s fellow townspeople.Jackson’s cautionary tale sprang to mind with the cultural ston...

The male crisis that’s ruining our boys and no one cares aboutWednesday June 13th, 2018
Father’s Day approaches and with it the opportunity to consider the importance of fathers to their children.It is difficult to overstate both the positive effects of growing up with a father and the negative effects of father absence, especially for boys. These myriad benefits and perils are on record, undisputed and easily accessible. But in this gynocentric era, what is good or bad fo...

A celebrated figure today could well be the condemned sinner of tomorrowTuesday June 5th, 2018
It was a happy day for the Winnipeg Pakistani community at the recent official opening of a park named for Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan in 1948. The ceremonies were presided over by Pakistan’s High Commissioner to Canada, Tariq Azim Khan, in company with MPs Terry Duguid and Iqra Khalid, who congratulated everyone present on this milestone.Thirty years ago, such an even...

A new documentary gives ammunition to the sugar-is-deadly warriorsWednesday May 30th, 2018
For decades, the low-fat diet has been to health and weight as Marxism to political governance: a catastrophic failure. People are fatter and sicker than ever. Why? Because lowering fat intake results in compensatory carb intake. Especially sugar. And sugar makes you fat and unhealthy. But, like Marxists, lipophobes will never admit their first premises are wrong, even when confronted by inc...

Hamas will always win the PR war, even as Israel wins the military victoriesTuesday May 22nd, 2018
In his May 16 column, Terry Glavin takes Israel to task for the deaths and injuries of Gazan Palestinians sustained in the border clashes he concedes that Hamas orchestrated.Yes, Glavin understands that “Hamas exists for the sole purpose of doing violence to Israel and to Israelis.” Yes, clearly “what (Hamas) failed to accomplish with its rockets and tunnels, it is now prep...

Israelis hold their fire as long as they can. Hamas writes cheques after mass suicidesFriday May 18th, 2018
There’s an old French proverb which, translated, reads: “This animal is very bad; when you attack it, it defends itself.” There is only one “animal” — politically speaking — that inspires this curious strain of logic, but it does so over and over again. Israel. Alone of the nations, Israel draws condemnation for doing what every other nation in the w...

The embassy move only angers the usual suspects. Even the Arab leaders have bigger problems nowTuesday May 15th, 2018
So Israel’s U.S. embassy is where it belongs: Jerusalem, Israel’s eternal capital. It took its sweet time getting there, but, thanks to the last person on Earth most Americans want to credit for any foreign-affairs success, Donald Trump, there it is. Mazel tov.The usual suspects are bruiting their dismay and/or outrage, convinced that the embassy gambit will act as a provocation ...

Another cultural institution succumbs to Jordan Peterson hysteriaTuesday May 1st, 2018
This Friday marks the 175th consecutive weekly “Free Raif Badawi” vigil in Sherbrooke, Quebec, where the imprisoned Saudi blogger’s family found asylum and have lived as permanent residents for the past three years. Badawi is still serving a seven-year prison sentence for “insulting Islam through electronic channels.”On April 26, to celebrate its 70th anniversar...

The agony of an attack without explanation, and the pain of chaosTuesday April 24th, 2018
The method is only too familiar. The motive of the man who rammed a van into dozens of pedestrians in Toronto on Monday is so far unclear, although it is for the moment tentatively linked to sexual grievances.In 1993, when North Americans were still cocooned in their bubble of geopolitical security, a 1,200-pound bomb in a Ryder van parked underground at New York’s World Trade Center e...

A gift for Israel’s birthday: a legal summary of its clear legitimacyTuesday April 17th, 2018
Israel’s 70th birthday will be celebrated Thursday. Note the passive voice. I would have preferred “the world will join in celebration of Israel’s 70th birthday,” but immediately saw its impossibility.The reality is more people will be cursing than congratulating Israel on this occasion. Cursing, rhetorically speaking, comes easy. Israel haters rely on emotive, trigge...